In Writer, how can I type Indian fonts, such as Sanskrit?

users
#1

In Writer, how can I type Indian fonts, such as Devanagari/Devanaagarii, for Hindi or Sanskrit?

I'm using LibreOffice 3.4.3 on Linux (Trisquel 4.5.1).

I tried going to the following places:

         Trisquel: System > Administration > Language Support

         Writer: Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages

Thank you.

Winston

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
There is some documentation on
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation#Getting_Started_with_LibreOffice
but i am not sure it's really helpful.  Hopefully what you need might be in the chapter about fonts?  or the chapter about setting up LibreOffice (Ch2).

Someone who is great at this sort of thing is likely to be on-line in about 6 hours so you might wake-up tomorrow to find a good answer waiting for you.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

Hi :slight_smile:
I think you need
Tools - Options - "Language Settings"
Near the bottom tick the "Enabled for Asian languages and maybe tick the "Complex Languages (CTL)"?

It is good to hear someone using Trisquel.  Debian family (same as Ubuntu, Mint etc) but meets the very demanding requirements of the FSF
http://www.fsf.org/
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=trisquel
http://trisquel.info/
Looks good but i guess it needs a bit of experience with Gnu&Linux before trying something  like this?  Have you already used other distros in the same family?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#4

Hello Winston,
You can do the following - works for openoffice on debian 6.0, I suppose that's the same for libreoffice:

    * download sanskrit font sanskrit2003.ttf (
      http://www.omkarananda-ashram.org/Sanskrit/itranslator2003.htm -
      http://www.omkarananda-ashram.org/Sanskrit/sanskrit2003.zip )
    * copy sanskrit2003.ttf to /usr/share/fonts/truetype (that should be
      the right path, but I'm not sure on your distro)
    * supposing you have Gnome (if you use KDE let me know), go to
      System --> Preferences --> Keyboard and choose the tab
      Disposition (that should be the english name)
    * click "add", choose "By Nation", select "India", click "add"
      again, then close the keyboard preferences window
    * if it doesn't appear by itself, add a keyboard indicator on the
      Gnome menu panel --> right clic on the panel, click "add to panel"
      and select "Keyboard indicator"
    * once you have the keyboard indicator on your panel, select indian
      layout, then open libreoffice writer
    * if the keyboard layout has changed... go back to indian again
    * select sanskrit 2003 font
    * and finally... write in sanskrit! :slight_smile:

Namastè! or I'd better write... नमस्ते :slight_smile:

#5

Have you installed the language packs for your various Indian languages? If not, you will need to go online to the download page of http://www.libreoffice.org/download/ and download and install the languages you want to use.

I assume that you have Indian fonts installed on your computer.

"CTL" has many options, and some of them look like they might be Indian dialects.

<http://www.libreoffice.org/download/>

#6

Hi :slight_smile:
You can find the right path by looking in
Tools - Options - LibreOffice/General - Paths
There 'should' be a line for fonts in there.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#7

In Writer, how can I type Indian fonts, such as Devanagari/Devanaagarii, for Hindi or Sanskrit?

I'm using LibreOffice 3.4.3 on Linux (Trisquel 4.5.1).

I tried going to the following places:

        Trisquel: System > Administration > Language Support

        Writer: Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages

Thank you.

Winston

Hello Winston,
You can do the following - works for openoffice on debian 6.0, I suppose that's the same for libreoffice:

   * download sanskrit font sanskrit2003.ttf (
     http://www.omkarananda-ashram.org/Sanskrit/itranslator2003.htm -
     http://www.omkarananda-ashram.org/Sanskrit/sanskrit2003.zip )
   * copy sanskrit2003.ttf to /usr/share/fonts/truetype (that should be
     the right path, but I'm not sure on your distro)

I just click on the font and a font preview window pops up with an "Install Button"
I use Ubuntu [Debian], and that is how I install fonts. All my fonts appear in a .font hidden folder. So if they need to go into the folder you listed, the need to go into the hidden one as well.

There is a font named Devnagri. I have seen over 200 versions of that font.

#8

dont know about 'trisquel'.for ubuntu lucid,i went to

language

choose bengali(as its my native language).keyboard shortcut appear in the
panel(previous to lucid,you need to add this separately).
anyway when i need to type,i just clicked on it and bengali gets
activated.its system wide-works in firefox,chromiun,LO.you need not to
install any separate language pack for it to work.just the font.since
sanskrit uses devnagari script (also used by hindi),so that should not be a
problem.
but as i've said this is for ubuntu lucid;dont know about trisquel
regards,

#9

Hi :slight_smile:
Same family so it's probably exactly the same
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#10

ops! same on Debian too! I copied instructions an old manual and forgot the new way to install fonts... forgive me! :slight_smile:

#11

Thank you for your replies.

I followed the messages below from elcico2001 and "webmaster for Kracked Press Productions" about installing Sanskrit 2003 and changing preferences.

Trisquel 4.5.1 is a little different from what elcico2001 wrote---instead of a "Disposition" tab, there is a "Layouts" tab. I went to the following places:

System
> Preferences
> Keyboard
> Layouts (tab)
> Add (button)
> By language (tab)
> Language (drop-down list)
> Hindi.

On the GNOME panel at the bottom of my desktop, there are two keyboard icons, one with an earth ("Keyboard preferences"), and one without ("IBus input method framework").

Right-clicking the icon without an earth gives a menu with radio buttons for "USA" and "India Hindi Bolnagri".

When I chose "India Hindi Bolnagri", I was able to type Devanaagarii (Hindi, Sanskrit) in Writer.

@soumalya ray,
@Tom Davies:

         Trisquel 4.5.1 has System > Preferences, but no Language.

Winston

#12

Tom,

Regarding distros, besides Trisquel 4.5.1, I've used or tried the following distros:

--- Ubuntu 10.10
--- Ubuntu 11.04
--- Linux Mint
--- gNewSense, a fully-free distro
--- RedHat

I may have also used Ubuntu 10.04.

Winston

#13

Hi :slight_smile:
In System - Preferences is there a "Regionalisation" or "localisation" option?  There might be a "keyboards" option in there.  The documentation
http://trisquel.info/en/wiki/switch-languages-and-keyboard-layout
suggests that Debian/Ubuntu documentation is close to what you need so it's worth looking around in that preferences folder for something that looks about right.  The trisquel documentation for that does need to be updated.  Perhaps you could manage to update it?  Have you done any wiki editing before?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#14

Tom,

In Trisquel 4.5.1, System > Preferences does not have options with the exact names "Regionalis(z)ation" or "Localis(z)ation", although there is a "Keyboard" option.

Thank you for suggesting that I update the Trisquel wiki. It's been a long time since I edited a wiki, but I if I get more familiar with the language options, I may edit the Trisquel wiki.

Winston

#15

Possibly not everybody knows---today (September 17) is Software Freedom Day. There may be events happening in a city near you:

http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/

To celebrate, the maintainers of Trisquel, a fully-free version of Linux, have released version 5.0:

http://trisquel.info/

(I found out about the above events just today.)

Winston

#16

Well, I forget a lot of things between the different OS's I have dealt with. There are a lot of things I still do not know how to do with Ubuntu, and I have been using it full time for over 18 months.

#17

Thank you Winston,
I just had a look at the trisquel website and I found out that... and I think I'll try this distro tonight! :slight_smile:
Namastè! :slight_smile:

#18

Hi :slight_smile:
Hmm, sorry i couldn't help there.  Don't worry about editing the wiki if you don't have time.  It feels good to do things like that but it's not always easy to find time.

Have you managed to fix the problem yet or is there still something more that needs to be done?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#19

Tom,

I fixed the problem about typing in Devanagari/Devanaagarii (the alphabet of Hindi and Sanskrit) in Writer on Linux. Thank you.

If anyone else has the same problem, you can try looking at my reply below at Saturday, 17 September, 2011, 17:55, about the steps that I took for Trisquel 4.5.1.

Winston